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Grendel

John Gardner

Key Facts

Quiz

Study Questions

1.

How is Grendel structured?
How does this structure relate to the themes of the novel as a whole?

Grendel traces the final
year of Grendel’s life, beginning in the spring and ending with
Grendel’s death in the winter. As a motif in art, the cycle of the
seasons—a natural and inevitable journey—traditionally represents
a well-patterned cycle of life, moving from birth to death and repeating
in an endless loop that is natural and good. Grendel, however, does
not accept this understanding of the seasons. At the beginning of
the novel, we see a ram frolicking in the spring weather, ready
to capitalize on the season’s promise of new growth and sexual abandon.
Grendel opposes this instinctual obedience to nature’s design, because
to him it represents a thoughtless, mechanical adherence to a pattern
that has no real meaning. He is most upset, however, because he
sees the season having a similar effect on him—he cannot help but
swim up through the lake and begin attacking humans, simply because
his instincts tell him to do so. The endless repetition of the seasons,
every year looking much the same as every year before, also frustrates
Grendel, who feels trapped by the static and unchanging pattern.

Grendel views the seasons as static because they endlessly
repeat themselves in a fashion he sees as mechanical. Other characters
in the novel, however, focus on the seasonal cycle’s ability to
renew itself constantly, thereby continually providing liberation,
release, and the possibility of rebirth. Throughout Grendel, images
of spring cracking through the hardened shell of winter represent
just such a phenomenon. Grendel’s death falls at just this moment,
when the year is ending its period of winter and is about to return
to spring. We may read this ending cynically: as winter is a time
of death, we may feel that the conventions of literature require
Grendel to die in just as mechanical a fashion as anything else.
Or we may read this ending more positively, focusing on the season’s
ability to “crack” Grendel and provide him with a possible salvation.
As Grendel dies, he feels joy and terror equally, leaving us with
an ambiguous notion that both readings may, in fact, be correct.

2.

Grendel is
a work of fiction based on another work of fiction. What is the
nature of this relationship, and how does it affect the meaning
of Grendel?

Grendel is based on the
sixth-century Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, a
work in which Grendel is a grotesque, violent monster who terrorizes
a small community of Danish warriors. After twelve years of continued
aggression, the great Geatish warrior Beowulf comes across the ocean
to rid the Danes of the beast. After killing Grendel, Beowulf goes
on to defeat both Grendel’s mother and, many years later, a great
dragon that kills Beowulf as it dies. Grendel focuses
on Beowulf’s battle with Grendel, and in doing so flips the protagonist
and antagonist. Gardner greatly expands Grendel’s history and alters
the monster’s characterization to an equal degree. In Gardner’s
novel, very little separates Grendel from his human counterparts:
he has a high level of intelligence, as well as a human capacity
for both emotion and philosophy.

Grendel is an example of what is termed
metafiction—that is, a piece of fiction about another
piece of fiction. In the novel, Grendel, the villain of the original
poem, spends more time observing and attempting to understand the
humans than actually attacking them. In his observations, Grendel
questions the value systems set forth in Beowulf, a
work that takes place in a world governed by a very knowable, unshakable
moral code. In Grendel, heroism, beauty, patriotism,
and political eloquence ultimately provide little solace in a violent,
chaotic world. Indeed, Grendel portrays a world
philosophically opposed to the world of Beowulf. Grendel’s
world is characterized by equal parts futility and helplessness.
The fact that the plot of Beowulf predetermines
all the events of Grendel reinforces Grendel’s
feeling of being trapped. Even though Grendel himself is technically
unaware of the Beowulf poem, Gardner does prefigure
upcoming events in the novel through significant foreshadowing.
This foreshadowing is used most prominently to hint at Grendel’s
imminent encounter with Beowulf. The arrival of the Geats fulfills
a vague, unfocused waiting from which Grendel has been suffering
for several chapters. When Beowulf eventually manages to kill Grendel,
the latter feels a mix of terror and joy, suggesting that part of
Grendel has wanted to accept his role in the Beowulf epic,
even though that role has required him to play the part of the villain.

3.

Why is Grendel
attracted to the words of the Shaper? Why is he attracted to the
words of the dragon?

The dragon and the Shaper represent two opposing
elements of Grendel’s personality. The dragon speaks to Grendel’s
rational, intellectual side. Though the dragon has, by virtue of
his incredible power, a rare insight into the true nature of the
world, the basic premise he relays to Grendel is inarguable and
understandable even to a “creature of the Dark Ages” such as Grendel.
The dragon shows how, against the awesome scope of the entire universe,
man and his little world have as much overall impact as a swirl
of dust. This assertion supports the vague feelings of futility
and helplessness that Grendel has already been experiencing. Moreover,
this eminently rational outlook also helps Grendel feel superior
to the humans, who make him feel excluded and monstrous. Despite
the dragon’s teachings, Grendel cannot shake the feeling that something
meaningful will come of all his questioning and seemingly pointless
suffering. The dragon, meanwhile, keeps trying to get Grendel to
resist those feelings, to accept that they are irrational.

The Shaper, on the other hand, feeds these emotional,
spiritual yearnings. The Shaper provides Grendel—and the Danes—with models
of the world where things happen for definite reasons, and where
people ultimately get what they deserve. This concept of a highly
ordered, morally coherent world is incredibly seductive to Grendel,
because believing in such a world would help alleviate his feelings
of isolation and emptiness. However, Grendel’s rational side, as
fostered by the dragon, prevents Grendel from being able to wholeheartedly
accept the Shaper’s beautiful words. Grendel has seen enough of
the Danes’ true history to realize that the Shaper’s moral systems
are specious. Grendel’s emotional and rational sides appear irreconcilable,
and indeed, he remains precariously poised between the two positions
for most of the novel.

Suggested Essay Topics

1. Why do you think Gardner made
the decision to use Grendel as a narrator? How does Grendel’s status
as a monster affect the way he tells the story?

2. What is Grendel’s attitude
toward language? How does it change throughout the novel?

3. What does Grendel want from
Hrothgar and the Danes? Would it ever be possible for Grendel to
attain his goal? If so, how?

4. Choose an astrological sign
and follow it through its associated chapter. What is the sign’s
relevance? What does it come to signify in Grendel as
a whole?

5. Trace Gardner’s use of “cartoon”
imagery throughout Grendel. Why is the use of grotesque,
exaggerated humor appropriate in the novel?

Spent a lot of years working on 'Beowulf' and I reckon that the monsters represent human characters. In my view: Grendel represents Agnar, son of Ingeld; Grendel's Mum represents the daughter of Earl Swerting of Sweden (and the first wife of Ingeld); and the Dragon represents Onela, king of the Swedes. I think that there has been a scribal error right at the beginning of the poem, which has made Scyld's 'bearn' (Modern English, 'bairn') into Beowulf the First. Thus the real parallels of the poem have been lost.